Neoliberalism and Pandemics: A Critical Cultural Psychological Perspective

Authors

  • Tyler Jimenez
    Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
  • Harrison J. Schmitt
    Psychology Department, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, USA

Abstract

In this theoretical article, we analyze from a critical cultural psychological perspective why neoliberalism is ill-suited to handle crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, we describe a process whereby neoliberalism motivates individualism, which in turn contributes to precarity, inequality, depoliticization, and penality, each of which have exacerbated the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. We conclude with a critique of how hegemonic practices in the field of psychological science are implicated in this process of neoliberal individualism and consider how the field might resist neoliberalism.